Ukiah City Council OKs Costco EIR

A potential Costco store in Ukiah cleared three more hurdles Wednesday as the Ukiah City Council approved the project's Environmental Impact Report and two other items needed before groundbreaking can begin.

More than three hours of discussion was held at the Dec. 4 meeting, which included many comments by the public both for and against building the store, but very little discussion was held Wednesday and very few members of the public addressed the council.

The council delayed a vote on the EIR Dec. 4 in order to make sure that a large stack of comments presented both at that meeting and on Dec. 13 were addressed.

Two experts spoke at the Dec. 18 meeting to dispute claims that the EIR's traffic statistics and urban decay predictions were not accurate.

"(City staff members) believe you have an abundance of information, really more than is required, and you are now ready to certify this EIR," Planning Director Charley Stump told the council, which then voted unanimously to certify the EIR.

Once the EIR was approved, the council then needed to adopt a "Statement of Overriding Considerations" declaring that the store's benefits would outweigh its negatives, which is needed because the EIR identified three areas of "significant and unavoidable impacts" to air quality, traffic and global climate change.

City staff noted that the store, which is expected to collect $120 million a year, could bring the city another $900,000 a year, create between 175 and 200 new jobs that would pay more than minimum wage and stop more than 200,000 trips a year made by Ukiah residents to Sonoma County Costco stores.

After previously stating during the Dec. 4 meeting that they all supported bringing Costco to Ukiah, the council voted unanimously to find that the project's benefits would outweigh its negative environmental impacts by adopting the statement.

Finally, the council approved a request to rezone the property where the store would be located, changing the designations to retail/commercial from light manufacturing/mixed use and automotive industrial/commercial.

The next significant step the project must complete is approval of its Site Development Permit, which will go before the Ukiah Planning Commission late next month.

If the project clears all hurdles, the store may open in February or March of 2015.